


In This Rain

by MelpomeneX (AlexMel21)



Category: Mamamoo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, F/F, hwabyul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:15:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMel21/pseuds/MelpomeneX
Summary: She's an heiress; she's one of faceless. They don't see the world through the same lens.But they both want to see the world burn.
Relationships: Ahn Hyejin | Hwasa/Moon Byulyi | Moonbyul
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30





	1. The Three Houses

**Author's Note:**

> So I have this AU tucked in the depths of my box of fics for a good decade now, written for another fandom. Never thought the day would come that I would revisit this storyline and rewrite it for my favorite angsty pairing. I hope I finally finish this one with a bow.
> 
> Please be kind, I am a new Moo and my muse has been recently revived. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this take. It's my first time in a long, looooong time to write in first-person again. It proved to be challenging but here we are. Anyways, this has been a bit too wordy for a note.
> 
> Nothing written here is real and all of these are re-imagined. None are also done with ill or malicious intent. Please don't sue.

We live in an unfair world. People who are simply longing for peace and happiness are often the ones who have the opposite, and people who are financially stable are usually emotionally disabled. The painful reality struck me early on. I’m one of the few people who have everything, but deep inside, have nothing. I’m the one who is surviving, looking for that one thing that can fill up my lifetime of emptiness.

When I was a kid, I’m one of the few who appeared to be bright and contented on the outside, but when the walls close, when the doors are locked, it’s just me, a girl lost in a multitude of faceless people roaming about our place. Porcelain masks with plastered smiles without eyes or ears or nose flood our house every single day, in all shapes and sizes, all colors even. I used to be attached to the hip of my Grandpa at all times, especially when he went out and visited the family businesses.

We are stockbrokers. We create computer electronic parts that are exported throughout the world. But that’s the clean side. The underbelly of the family business? We make and sell high caliber guns, armory, and weaponry, ammunitions and heavy equipment to the black market. We still do; my Grandpa retired and made me run the business. But growing up, I never exactly lived a normal life of what people stereotype as an heiress, despite being born with the proverbial golden spoon in my mouth.

I witnessed violence at its most revolting sight. When I was young, I saw my dad slowly die at the hands of the dealers who refused his offer. They didn’t agree on the price and quality, even though we are the finest in our side of the country, and dad and his entourage were backing out of the deal. I was the silent witness to my dad’s death, yet I cannot testify because I would jeopardize the whole family. His entourage of twenty people excluding me was shot to death with our own weaponry and he was hung upside- down from a crane, used as target for the dealers’ shooting game. I called Grandpa and told him exactly what I was seeing. I went out of the car and told them to please let my daddy down. I was 10, had no idea of what they had done; I thought it was just part of the deal- making and stuff. Then Grandpa arrived and took me back to his limousine, all I heard were more gunshots. I never saw the men who killed daddy come out of the abandoned building. The last memory of my dad was his casket that was lowered down in a deep hole. Grandpa said he wouldn’t be working anymore and he will have his much-deserved rest. I agreed.

From then on, I lived with my Grandpa, and saw more violence. More action, more drama, more disparity between people, mostly between me and other kids.

Grandpa home-schooled me until I was ready for high school. I rarely saw the outside of the Moon property, because I had everything in my room, next was the house almost always filled with people doing their work for Grandpa. I have come to hate those people and once when I was twelve, someone tried to open the lock of my doors in the middle of the night. He was holding one knife and was threatening me that if I made any noise, he’d stab me to death. I was just staring at him, while slowly I fumbled for the 45- caliber gun underneath my bed, the one my dad gave me before he went to his last business deal, until one of my bodyguards tackled him and Grandpa shot him personally in the head.

I want to think that I was just any ordinary kid. I wandered along the Moon property, I learned how to ride a bike and Grandpa taught me how to ride a horse. My uncle taught me archery and Grandpa gave me my first lesson in target shooting. I studied in an exclusive all- girls high school and finished with the highest honors. I went to the states for college and finished as an accountant. Eventually went on to law school to become a lawyer. Accountancy and Law. Exactly what my family business needed of me.

I thought I was an ordinary kid, except for the fact that I had ten bodyguards that surrounded me ever since I could remember. I was never given too much of what I needed, too little of what I should be having. But I knew the striking difference when I asked my classmate in senior- high where she went after classes, because she always disappeared without a word after our last subject. It turned out she was under a scholarship and had to work after school for her allowance.

There were people who don’t have jobs and just roam the city. There was definitely more to life than being cooped up inside the Moon property (being in it wasn’t really a big deal for me anyway). I didn’t know, not because I ignored it, but just because I didn’t know. No one told me. I didn’t notice.

I thoroughly understood what the gut-wrenching part of our business was when Grandpa took me to a high-fenced property just outside of the capital, a few weeks after he shot the stranger who evaded my room. In it were three big houses. All of them were dark blue and there were security wires all over the place.

I can still remember that day.

We went in the first house; I heard a lot of babies crying and toddlers were crawling on the playpen. When I looked up, a baby - dirty and looked like it came from the city streets - was being brought up to the second floor. My Grandpa was talking to one of the attendants and after a short while, they went to the third house, I was left with three bodyguards, Grandpa instructed them to let me roam around.

It was an old, two-story house, but not old enough to look haunted, (besides I wasn’t even taught exactly what was scary or terrifying, I did witness my dad’s murder and I only went to therapy around a couple of times) and there were a lot of…babies. After a few minutes, the attendant returned from upstairs with the baby in hand, all cleaned up and asleep. She saw me staring at her and politely asked me where my Grandpa was. I told her they went to the third house. She smiled ruefully and placed the sleeping baby in an empty crib near the playpen. She then asked me if I wanted to go to the playground because Grandpa was going to take a while in the other house. I shrugged but she led me the way to the outdoor playground. No one in particular was there, except for a little girl with long black wavy hair and a worn out white sundress, sitting on a swing while staring at her feet.

I remember telling the one of my bodyguards to stay away from the playground or within my eyesight for a couple of minutes, like what I always tell them, when I approached people who actually didn’t know me. I was drawn to the little girl, she was a little chubby, and unlike the other toddlers I saw inside the building; they were pale and frail- looking. I walked towards the swing and sat on the unoccupied one. The loud creak of the swing startled her and her eyes widened at the sight of me.

She had those eyes that looked like my favorite chocolate drink Grandpa always makes me before I go to sleep.

She stared back at me, her eyes filled with incredulity and terror; her personal space had been invaded by some girl in a frilly blue dress coat. I tilted my head at my right and she gasped. She might have thought I was just her imagination. I chuckled, delighted at what I saw in her - she was like me, she never saw anyone alive that was in her age, or at least in the same space as she was. I think she might have been just a few years younger than me. And all at the same time, she was unlike me, because her eyes were filled with innocence and fear, when mine was already stripped bare of innocence. She was unlike me, because she was living in who knows where, while I lived in my Grandpa’s house.

She still wordlessly stared at me, and I offered her a smile. I am not the friendly type, but the girl was intriguing me, as her “home” already had. I slowly approached her, but she backed away a little from my gesture. I tilted my head and broke our wordless encounter,

“Your eyes look like chocolate.” Her eyes widened and she blushed. She turned her head away from me and her eyes darted all across the outdoor playground. I was beginning to think she was mute when she muttered,

“Ch-choco—?”

“Your eyes…they look like chocolate.” I pointed at my own, then at her, demonstrating what I was trying to convey. The girl shook her head.

“What’s choco…choco?”

It was my turn to get stunned. Right, there was no chocolate here. I scratched my head and chuckled a little. The girl avoided my gaze once again. I took a deep breath and introduced myself.

“Byulyi. My name is Byulyi.”

The girl looked back at me and like an automated machine, she bowed low and greeted me with a straight-faced “Annyeonghaseyo.”

I nodded at her, trying to encourage her to speak, or do anything really. Looking at her, she looked like she’d run away the moment I move any closer to her. Like a wild animal ready to sprint and hide. I felt worried.

“Do…do you have a name?”

A pause. She didn’t look up from where she was looking at and just answered me flatly.

“Yes, my name is Hyejin. Nice to meet you.”

It didn’t feel right but I wasn’t about to give up on her. So I made a snow ball and threw it to the spot next to her. That seemed to snap her out of it.

Her eyes widened and proceeded to make a snowball too. She threw it at my direction and I narrowly missed it. Then before I knew it, I got hit squarely on my head with the snowball.

I laughed. A really loud belly laugh. Something that I haven’t done in a long while. Back then I forgot the meaning of suddenness, and surprise and play. I’ve become so stoic in a such a young age, everything felt like it was automated. But then this girl just suddenly threw a snowball at my face.

It was a big reset to my young mind back then. And when I look back, I think it was also a sudden change of pace for Hyejin.

I played with Hyejin for a very long a time; the sun had almost hidden itself behind the clouds when my Grandpa asked me to leave my new friend behind. I can remember the sadness that returned to her chocolate eyes when she saw me wave goodbye. But when I was nearing my Grandpa, she ran into me, almost knocking me down.

She clung to me hard - she was hugging me. After a few moments, she stood up and pulled something from the pocket of her worn-out sundress. She placed it inside my hand and closed my hand tightly before she turned and ran upstairs. I followed her ascending figure until my Grandpa broke my stare; he offered his crinkled hand and told me it was time to go.

That was the first time I saw the little girl with black wavy hair. And up until now, I still stare at the thing that she gave me before I left. It was a gold locket, but only half of it. I knew it was a locket because my half had the hinge that connects to the other half. There was a quote inscribed inside the locket,

It was not long before I knew what the property was actually for, because we went there again, a decade after.


	2. The Locket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was walking outside the House, kicking the fine snow that fell down that morning. There were no more swings to sit down on and contemplate stuff, but between my thick jacket and long sleeves, beneath my pants and my boots, was the little girl in the swing, utterly lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyejin's perspective. Rewriting the end parts was extremely hard. :O I think the next chapters would just be third person. 
> 
> Nothing written here is real and all of these are re-imagined. None are also done with ill or malicious intent. Please don't sue.

I have always viewed life as unfair. I practically lived in the streets. My mama and papa ran here in when I was 8 months in my mama’s tummy. They had no jobs, no basic needs—I was told that I was born under a waiting shed on a rainy evening and was never given any vaccines or any health service in my first year of life. We were lucky to be alive after crossing the border.

Or at least that was what the social worker told me.

I am surviving by swallowing a bitter pill called life and living it through disgust and hatred to people who have left me this wretched ever since I could remember. I am the one who found loneliness and despair early on, and is trying to find reason behind all things that are happening in my life. A quest that I would like to end by me finding someone who could take me out of the dark and never be afraid of showing me what it is like to be loved.

When I turned four, my mama died and the police took my papa after he left me in front of a house, which I was sure wasn’t the social services place I used to stay in all night. The house was dark blue, and was in front of two other houses inside a big property. Since that gloomy day, I lived in that property, in that place, where my views on life were distorted and made me the miserable person that I am today.

I work now. But the work that I do is not what most people think as decent and ordinary people rarely see me. By ordinary, I mean people who aren’t wealthy enough. I am what they describe to be as an exclusive stripper. A stripper in an exclusive and highly surreptitious _club_. As top secret as it is, it’s not located in the city. We travel, my “coworkers” and I, to different cities, depending on where the club decides to rendezvous. I don’t consider my job as a job at all. And when I found out what the House taught the children to be like, I would have thrashed, kicked, and eventually killed myself in attempt of escaping the place.

When I was five, I used to keep myself locked up in the attic and no one actually noticed because I don’t speak to anyone. The attic is where the sunlight always shone and the warmth never failed bouncing all over the small room. Even with the reality of being locked up in an unknown house and being taken care of by people clearly not from the government, I tried to look into life with a sunny disposition, because after all, I was surviving, inside a big house where girls and boys were paid attention to. The people there taught us to be independent, and we were schooled in the House. I was fascinated with drawings and floor plans, I dreamt of becoming an architect someday. But I realized it would never happen when I turned seven.

I saw Mi-sun, a fourteen- year-old girl from room 124, pack her things up as she was ordered to leave the house. She was asked to transfer to the second house. The look in her eyes was pure horror, but she couldn’t say no to our attendant. We were told that she was transferring because she was going to study high school there. But I never saw belief in Mi-sun’s eyes. All she did was sob while I was looking at her. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who was leaving that day - almost all of the girls in the second floor were transferring to the second house. The only girls left were five including me— I was the youngest. We had no idea why the girls were crying, we were confused, the four of them took their siestas but panic and sorrow took over my seven-year-old body. I took the locket from my drawer, the one that my mama gave me before she closed her eyes and before dad left me here, and opened it. I never got tired of reading the words inscribed in the locket. I pocketed the necklace and went outside to the swing. I imagined being an architect one day. The gentle creaking of the swing seemed to agree with my thoughts.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when a tall, blonde-haired girl sat beside me on the empty swing right next to me. She wasn’t very old, I thought, but I had never seen her inside the house before. I concluded that people never actually went back into the house once they got out, so she wasn’t exactly going to stay in the house either. She flipped her hair and tilted her head at me, as if she was studying me - like the head attendant did when I first came in the house. I stood and backed away from her; I wasn’t used to seeing strangers come inside the house. Then without any warning she spoke, her voice gravelly and soft all at the same time,

“Your eyes look like chocolate.” It was an observation; her eyes were boring into mine. I was shaken. And what exactly is choco…

“Ch-choco—?”

“Your eyes…they look like chocolate.” She said. She was in a blue dress coat. All bundled up and warm in this mess of a snowy day. It was my turn to tilt my head and I just gave up. I shook my head, not completely understanding what she’s comparing my eyes with.

“What’s choco…choco?”

I sounded stupid and ignorant. So I averted my eyes and just stared at the snow. I’m not stupid though, I just…I don’t understand. And what is this girl doing here anyway?

“Byulyi. My name is Byulyi.”

I found it a bit nice, she was making an effort to make me speak, but something automatically snapped in me, my pavlovian response— an inventory of responses that the attendants pounded into us to say whenever people would visit from the outside of the house.

“Annyeonghaseyo.”

I swallowed and bowed low. I did alright. She’d leave now, right? I felt her eyes looking at me and my palms started to sweat. I wanted to run away. I wanted to scream.

“Do…do you have a name?”

I bit my tongue, please don’t have this conversation with me.

“Yes, my name is Hyejin. Nice to meet you.”

I internally cringed at my voice. The attendants would be happy if they heard me. Plain, no excitement. Just flat and neutral. I hated it.

It was freezing cold but I can feel the heat of panic rise in me. I wanted to run away from—

A fast snowball just plopped beside my foot.

I looked up and saw her still staring at me, but with a smile. I did something I had never done in the three years I’d spent inside the house: I smiled back.

Then I threw a snowball at the kid as a response. I missed once, but never twice. I hit her with my second snowball on her forehead. I thought I hurt her but…she laughed.

She laughed so hard it was enough to make me laugh. It was nice. A feeling I’ve never known until that moment with the strange kid with blonde hair.

I felt very comfortable with her. I never knew there was such a thing as comfortable disposition with a girl you barely even know. Even up to this day I don’t know what came over me to actually tell that stranger what my name was and why I gave her a piece of my locket.

Oh right, the locket. I remember now.

She told me her name, and I introduced myself in return. She was like a long lost sister, a friend I never knew I had. I’d known a few people from the house, but they either went to the other house after a while or they just bullied me around when the attendants were not in the second floor.

She didn’t care that I had no fancy clothing or that I had no fancy shoes. She didn’t mind that I barely spoke— she just played with me until the sun gave in to the darkness and the playground started to get dim.

Men in suits approached her, and an old man called her from inside the house. He had those eyes like the blonde girl, but they were sterner, more authoritative. I wanted the young blonde to remember me, to remember the afternoon we spent together. How she made me feel happiness for the first time in my life. So when she started weaving her way out of the house, I ran into her, I wanted to let her know how happy I was that I knew her, even for just a short time. I watched as the men in suits were alarmed in what I did, but the blonde girl—Byulyi - stared them down as I clung to her as tight as I could, her eyes slicing through each of the four of them until they were reduced to shards.

I pulled my locket, a gift- shaped golden locket, and I broke it into half. I stuffed one half into her hand and took the other in with me when I ran upstairs. I thought that it would be the last time I’d see her again in the House. It was, but fate had other plans.

Things started to get weird when I turned thirteen. The attendants told me my grades were high and I was growing up too fast. They asked me to pack my bags on the eve of my fourteenth birthday; I knew they were going to send me to the other House that time. I was nervous, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care until one young attendant slipped and told me that we were going to be taught how to behave inside the cage when the right time arrived. I panicked. Cages? Why on earth would they put us in cages?

When I arrived in the other house, I saw Min-su, I barely even recognized her. She was different. She had amazingly long legs and she was wearing thick make- up, she was dolled up and looked like an Asian figurine I saw in books inside the mini library in the first house. I began thinking back to what the young attendant told me. Almost all of the girls inside the second house were pretty. I on the other hand, was brown- skinned and chubby. Just when I thought my life in the first house was drastic, life in the second house was mortifying. They wanted to trim my size down. For the first year I spent there, I was only fed with vegetables. I only ate meat when I turned seventeen. And it was only during that time I learned that there was such a thing as holidays. We knew our birthdays, but holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas were never taught to anyone of us until we lived inside the second house.

I was walking outside the House, kicking the fine snow that fell down that morning. There were no more swings to sit down on and contemplate stuff, but between my thick jacket and long sleeves, beneath my pants and my boots, was the little girl in the swing, utterly lost. I pulled my necklace from the pocket of my jacket and I played it on my gloved finger.

_“To everything there is a season.”_

I lifted my head after saying those words; it had been ten years since I gave away the other half of my locket to a complete stranger. By that time I already knew that she was one of the rich people I would sooner or later encounter. We were told the real truth behind our stay inside the House, and when we turned 20, we would transfer into the third house, ready for anyone who would want to pay to spend the night with us, or pay to buy us.

Modern day slavery. We were part of the market now, only difference is that we were the goods to be exported or sold. The Houses were buildings of an ‘underground charity’, those who take care of people living in the streets only to sell them by the time they get old enough to work. I had a feeling that underground and charity never fit into a proper sentence.

I sighed, as a lone snowflake ironically dropped onto my nose. I stared at it, and then I saw a crate. That crate again. One night I snuck out of my room and saw that three guys were being loaded into individual crates. All of them were shackled from neck up to their feet, with only their black shorts on. They were emotionless. Someone told me it was what they teach those who come in here, to be emotionless and to accept whatever hell we are being given, because somehow, we have lived a slow torment ourselves. The House only halted Hell for the longest time, but in the end, it was where we ought to be.

I sighed. Within three years I would be inside one of those crates. It was getting cold, I remembered picking out a small leaf from beneath my boots and the locket accidentally slipped off my gloved hand. I crouched and slowly picked it up from the pile of white flakes. Then I heard the crunch of another pair of boots on the newly fallen snow.


	3. Death of Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Raven always impresses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, here we go.
> 
> Nothing written here is real and all of these are re-imagined. None are also done with ill or malicious intent. Please don't sue.

Is life defined by breathing? Is someone alive if they’re hooked up to a machine so they could breathe?

Is freedom defined based on how people do things on their own volition? Is someone free if they’re kept inside a room, letting them do what their mind tells them to?

Who is alive? A dying person near family or a person attached to a machine to keep him alive? Who is free? The person in a straightjacket or the person who hurts people whenever that person feels like it?

I think it is better to just lie inside a coffin and be dead rather than be tortured for the rest of your days that you’re breathing. I know I want to be dead than to become an unwilling sex toy. I left the second House when I turned twenty, and like what I saw before, we were to be delivered into the third and final House. The third House was a three-story House, with a Victorian-inspired architecture (I should know, I did dream of becoming an architect one day) but like the other two, was painted with dark blue, a hue of grieving, almost indigo in color.

Unlike the other girls that I was with when we moved to the third House, I was kicking and screaming when they transferred us. I’m not a wild animal to be caged and be treated like one. The other girls just stared at me, their eyes zombie-like. They had no emotions, they were taught well. They were like people awaiting the execution they’ve been sentenced for quite some time now.

The brainwash may have been effective on them but it wasn’t on me. The lead attendant in the third House approached my cage and stared me down with her grey steely eyes,

“We took care of you, we nursed you when you were sick, we fed you and gave you a House to live in when you could’ve just died in the streets. We educated you, taught you lessons you can use come the time you will need them. You were taken care of for the longest time. This is just payback. You will work until you’ve paid us and then you’ll be set free. That is how this works. The Three Houses operates that way. So shut up, keep your emotions to yourself, and work.”

Without a word, the attendants left us inside a white room. I looked like a mess, judging by the way the other girls looked at me. We were still clothed in our shirt and jeans, but not long after, we were brought costumes—lingerie that hid nothing from the imagination. I didn’t wear them and they cannot force me to. The girls stripped down without a word in their areas and wore the garments, stood in their given high heels and waited for the lights to go out. I know this routine, it has been taught to us for the whole three months of the last year of my stay in the second House. After an eternity of waiting in the dark, the lights are brought back to life again and I saw men in suits with masks of all shapes and sizes, most of them black and had an identical grin, a maniacal grin, a crazy grin, all smiling lasciviously at our direction. I heard one of them let out a dirty, mocking laugh directed at the lone dressed girl that night. It was directed at me,

“Mmm…new blood. Take her to my hotel room tonight. How much are her hours?” to say I was mortified was an understatement. It seemed as if the man in a pinstriped- suit liked girls who refused to work in the place they call The Three Houses. The guard mumbled something to his ear and he chuckled that dirty laugh again.

“Book me for two nights. Little Miss Stubborn needs to be taught a lesson on how to obey.”

That was my first night. First night I went out of the property. First time I was violated, until I thought that I’m not me anymore. First time I was harassed, first time I felt my life being slowly sucked out of my body. I tried escaping, I tried howling, screaming for someone who’d help me from that hell that was The Three Houses. But no one came. The man who took my dignity away was a sadist pervert. After that night, it was etched in my head that everyone who comes to the Third House is a pervert. That was the night I died and The Raven was born.

That memory still makes me tear up every time I look myself in the mirror. My eyes reflect the worst night of my life. But my eyes are hidden from everyone’s view. They’d rather look at my legs, my body, or my smirk. They rather look at me when I dance, when I strip and when I’m writhing underneath them. They don’t care. They just want me. My attention. My soulless body.

I never failed to remind myself what happened even if it was already years ago. I think…I think I lost my mind but reminding myself of that every day of my life in the third House kept me alive.

The Three Houses started earning a whole lot when The Raven was born, the sex goddess that everyone wanted, that everyone in that Old Boy’s Club desired to sleep with. But there were only a few people who actually got to sleep with me. It’s either they see me dancing or they just wait for their “turn”. Turns out, I’m at the top of the list, and not everyone now has access to me. I haven’t slept with all of the people in that club and I now rarely leave the Third House, since my hourly price had gone through the roof. Even those who used to afford to pay for the whole night now think twice when the attendants upped my price.

Honestly, it sucked. Because that meant I’m so expensive, buying me is not an option, my now expensive selling price meant I can’t have my freedom from that place. As long as I’m not sold to anyone, I’ll stay in The Three Houses until one actually buys me at the yearly auction. It’s been five years since my price shot up to a starting amount of $500,000 during auction season. And no one wants a sex kitten in their homes so no one has bought me yet. I don’t think anyone would even try and buy me now.

I’m stuck in this House for the rest of my productive, young life. Stripping in front of salivating bastards hidden behind colorful masks. I’m living on the top floor of the third House, signifying my worth in comparison with the other inhabitants of the House.

But not everyone ends up stripping or becoming sex slaves. Most of them are actually bought to become workers, either to work free or to work until they have paid their dues to the ones who bought them. I should know, a déjà vu happened to me when I was 15.

I was outside the House, it was snowing, and I was contemplating about what the future may hold for me: that is if I had any future inside this miserable place. A woman walked up to me and when I saw her, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized.

She was wearing a thick, white, long- sleeved dress coat, black jeans that made her legs look even longer, and brown high- heeled boots lined with fur. Her short blonde hair was strewn all over her face, obscuring her black eyes.

Those black eyes. Those black eyes reminded me of a girl.

_“Excuse me. Yes uh, no one is inside this House but you. My bodyguards have left me and I don’t know where the ladies’ room is. Can you please show me where it is?”_

Her voice was enough to keep my eyes glued on to her figure. I stood there for sometime before she flipped her hair and tilted her head to me. That mannerism…

_“Are you mute? I know sign language and if you don’t tell me where the bathroom is I’ll just—“_

_“I’m sorry Madame, I’ll show you where the ladies’ room is.”_ I was pulled out of my dreamy stance when her voice started to become agitated. The last thing I wanted that time was to be shut inside the basement and not be fed for two meals. I pocketed my locket and escorted the blonde woman into one of the powder rooms of the House. We heard screams of pleasure in one of the nearby ground floor rooms and all I did is cringe. The blonde woman saw my expression, I thought I was doomed.

 _“You heard that too?”_ her voice was part disgusted, part infuriated. She knew the transactions happening inside the House, I just swallowed audibly and pretended to not hear anything.

 _“I saw you. You heard them.”_ She went inside the powder room and emerged after a while. She sauntered to the sofa where she seated herself on the big lone seat. She stared at the misty windows, and started talking in her hushed, gravelly tone,

_“My Grandpa is not a pervert. We come here to… buy people. But he buys them to get them out of this misery hole. He makes them work for him. And once they pay them their dues, he lets them go, he even gives them money to start a life of their own. We come here to rescue them, not use them because we’re sexually hungry or whatever.”_

There was conviction in her words. She was angry, angry at what they were doing inside the House and what the people here were doing. She chuckled after a heartbeat and took a deep breath as she stared at the floor, her hands stuffed in her coat pocket.

_“I don’t even know why I’m saying this to you. I hate this place.”_

_Yeah, I hate it too,_ I thought to myself.

She looked at me with a sullen expression. Her black eyes conveyed a thousand emotions, I wanted to get lost in them. She was sympathetic. She knew. She wanted to help. They want to buy people to help them get a life.

_What kind of a messianic complex she must have._

But my thoughts were halted when she started talking again, with a quieter, almost whispering tone.

“ _I…I met this girl on the first House, I don’t know if she still knows me. We were…I saw her sitting on the swing one winter afternoon, alone and sad and…do you know where I can find her?”_

I felt my heart jump up to my throat. This couldn't be happening.

 _“Of course it’s silly I know she’s… she’s a lot older now, maybe she’s in here?”_ she looked at me and I can tell she saw the shocked expression in my eyes. She stared at me again; I found myself drowning in her black orbs. Something in her eyes flickered, and she stood from where she was sitting.

 _“You are her... you’re her, right? You’re the girl from the swing.”_ Her expression was a mix of relief and panic. She walked to where I was standing and I felt my breath hitch. I thought she was going to reach for my arm but then she stopped a good arm’s length from me and she just…smiled. A mix of relief and sadness, but it was a smile.

I stared at her, my eyes felt warm with tears. It blurred my vision. I didn’t know what to do or what kind of feeling erupted in me. But the fact that she remembered me, and looked for me…

I bit my lip but the tears escaped, a dam broke. I still couldn’t answer her. I bowed and was supposed to lift my head again, but my vision just started swimming. She still didn’t attempt to cross the distance she left for me to decide whether I’d run away or not.

_“You’re Hyejin.”_

My name, spoken like a prayer of thanks. Like it was the most fascinating thing in the entire world. My name that I've never heard in the past how many years in this hell hole.

In that moment I felt what one kind of freedom meant – the choice being mine and given to me, not what is dictated nor what is said that I need to do. She gave me freedom to tell or not tell her if I was the girl from the swing. She gave me space and not just grab me or whatever.

But in that moment, I wanted her to envelope me in a tight embrace. Yet I couldn’t--I couldn't tell her, the words stuck in my throat. I just stood there crying.

She knelt on one knee in front of me so I could see her, she could see me without touching me.

“ _Hyejin? I will get you out of here.”_

I lifted my head after hearing those words. The most painful yet promising phrase that came out from this person’s lips. My trembling being wanted to say yes, please. I’ll even beg. Please let me get out of here.

But the old man with the same eyes reappeared, like the last time…my memory flooded me.

_“Byulyi, it’s time to go.”_

She had those look on her eyes, the look that was forever burned in my recollection. A look I never recognized. The look that will forever remind me of her. As she neared the door, she twisted a bit and said,

_“To everything, there is the right time.”_

The words inscribed in the other half of my locket. It was indeed her. Byulyi.

It was all I remembered. It was also the last time I saw her in the second House.

An empty promise. But a promise she did. I’m a fool to actually think it will come true.

And yet after another decade, I still remember those haunting eyes, her consoling voice. Her promise. As I was leaving the House for another performance, worst, another few hours to spend with either a dirty old man or a perverted middle- aged man, I remember her and her words. Her words might've kept me alive all these years. A little ray of hope for the lost, scared little girl in me, who just wanted to get away from the Three Houses.

I block these memories despite of myself. I think back on the men I had slept with. Most of them are good - looking, and most of my nights were spent erasing out the images of simultaneous whipping or hurting or almost dying in someone’s bedroom. I would return to the House bruised, hurt, bleeding. The nurses took care of me until my next performance.

I gained “experience” and my hours surged heavenwards. The next assignments meant they’d have to pay more if they return me hurt. A pivot started, they just use me for their fantasies, make me dress up, make me do stuff that will not require them touching me.They never try to bodily harm me again. I think I got lucky.

I curled myself, hugging my knees close to me, as the truck made its trip outside of the Houses and into a property of someone from the Club. I concentrated on making the scared, alone little girl in me vanish, I want to be the Raven tonight, I had to be. I had to impress. The Raven always impresses.


	4. A Promise of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a 12 million-dollar conversation— the most expensive conversation I’ll ever have in my lifetime. All for the sake of a promise. A promise of freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooop that's a wordy one. Next one is going to be quite exciting.
> 
> Nothing written here is real and all of these are re-imagined. None are also done with ill or malicious intent. Please don't sue.

I have never felt free. Even if I was always with Grandpa - even if he buys me all the books and all the tanghulus my heart desires when I was younger, even if he promised me things and he’ll most definitely grant them it never felt like I was free. I’ve always felt...stuck. Boxed from everyone else.

Not that I minded back then, but when Grandpa brought me the first time in the Three Houses, it was when I realized that I wasn’t really free.

Grandpa always goes there when he gets short of hands in our company. He buys them and makes them part of our staff. Once, when he planned to go there a few weeks after his last visit, and exactly 10 years since the winter of my first, I mustered all the courage in me and asked him if I can go too. He thought about it over dinner, not even talking to me when I attempted to make a conversation/

The next day, he asked me to be excused in my classes and accompany him to the Houses. On our way to there, he explained to me as best as he could what actually happens in the Houses. I felt sick to my stomach. But when he told me what his plans were, and how he’s been helping the orphans, strays, and those who came from the border, there was some sort of relief. An understanding of how things were supposed to slowly be better.

When we arrived I went immediately inside the first House, I wanted to see the girl who gave me the half of her locket. All of the attendants told me that they don’t know the girl and that all of them transfer to the second House once they turn 14. I immediately walked my way towards the second House, not caring if the attendants were asking me to stop. Grandpa was in the third House by that time so they actually had no power to stop me. Apparently, the visitors who weren’t transacting with the Houses were only allowed to see the first House. And the attendants who led each House weren’t allowed to come over the other Houses so I got in the second House without anyone tailing me.

No one was inside the House, looks like everyone was busy because that time, the yearly auction was in preparation. Though I didn’t know about the auction until after ten more years—all I thought of during that time was why there were no people in that house as if the entire place was suddenly abandoned.

I wandered at the back of the house to check if anyone was there. It was snowing again, and I decided to just come out to look at the snow. But then I saw a girl as I crunched in the newly fallen snow; she had dark wavy locks and was picking something from the ground. Great, someone I can finally ask where is the girl named Hyejin, the girl from the first House.

I needed to make a conversation, to ask her where that girl was, if she’s even here at all. But when she looked at me, all of my thoughts melted away. She was hauntingly beautiful; her eyes caught me and my heart skipped a beat. But I was looking for Hyejin so I forced myself to speak,

“Excuse me. Yes uh, no one is inside this House but you. My bodyguards have left me and I don’t know where the ladies’ room is. Can you please show me where it is?”

Silence. She just stared at me like I grew another head. I flipped my hair and tilted my head,

“Are you mute? I know sign language and if you don’t tell me where the bathroom is I’ll just—“

_“I’m sorry Madame, I’ll show you where the ladies’ room is.”_ She called me Madame. Like she already went through the brainwashing. It was terrifying.

She showed me the powder room, and when we got there, we heard screams of pleasure of people… I thought it was just my imagination, but I heard them again. And when I turned around, I saw the girl cringe.

“You heard that too?”

 _We_ heard it. It meant that she was still in her senses, she was still human, not a shell of a person.

“I saw you. You heard them.”

She immediately looked away as I went inside the powder room. I took out the piece of the locket and read it again. I must see Hyejin. But somehow, after seeing that other girl outside and knowing that she’s still in her senses, I wanted to make her understand that I’m not like…these disgusting people. We aren’t like them.

I wanted to make her understand what we were doing in there, wasn’t like what she and I heard. I went out and sat down on one of the old dingy couches; I watched the snow slowly falling outside the window.

“My Grandpa is not a pervert. We come here to… buy people. But he buys them to get them out of this misery hole. He makes them work for him. And once they pay them their dues, he lets them go, he even gives them money to start a life of their own. We come here to rescue them, not use them because we’re sexually hungry or whatever.”

I felt anger bubbling under my skin. I wanted to get out of there, but I need to know If Hyejin is still here. I laughed, it was ridiculous. Why am I even there, the girl, the snow, the whole thing. Why do I even bother?

“I don’t even know why I’m saying this to you. I hate this place.”

I looked at her again, the woman who is alone here and has not lost herself, not yet at least.

I wanted to help, to get the people out there. But there was so much I cannot do that time. Being the only willing audience, I told her about the little girl I met ten years ago, just wanting to know if she’s even alive or here at all.

“I…I met this girl on the first House, I don’t know if she still knows me. We were…I saw her sitting on the swing one winter afternoon, alone and sad and…do you know where I can find her?”

I tried to continue, mustering up that memory heightened by the season.

“Of course it’s silly I know she’s… she’s a lot older now, maybe she’s in here?”

When I finished my story, her eyes were in shock and she was frozen on her spot. Then, my eyes roamed her once again, the smooth brown skin, the chocolate pools, the dark wavy hair…

“You are her... you’re her, right? You’re the girl from the swing.”

I was overwhelmed, I was dumbstruck. I slowly stood up and approached her. I fought the urge to cry, to touch her, hug her—it felt wrong to reach out, I didn’t want to violate her personal space. But all relief poured over me and all I can manage was a tearful smile.

“You’re Hyejin.”

She was still here. She was still safe and alive. I could still find a way to save her.

Our eyes met and I saw tears flowing down her face. She bowed her head and her locks obscured my view of her face. I knelt down, wanting to see her, wanting to memorize what she looked like now. She’s safe, but I can make all of this disappear.

I did what I should’ve done a decade ago.

“Hyejin? I will get you out of here.”

She lifted her head to look at me, and I think she was going to say something but then Grandpa appeared,

“Byulyi, it’s time to go.”

I walked towards Grandpa, reluctant and hurting and afraid, afraid that I might lose Hyejin again if I don’t do something. I looked at her one last time.

“To everything, there is the right time.”

When we were back in the car, and the convoy started weaving our way back to our House, my whole body was shaking. I saw her again, it was incredible yet terrifying. Seeing her in the second House meant that she too would be sold to people who belonged in the Club. It meant I could never find her again. Grandpa saw me quivering, both from the cold and the fear that rushed in me. I knew I needed to get her out of there, even though I didn’t exactly know the reason why. Grandpa covered me with his coat and he let me lay my head on his shoulder. Finally tears began to spill.

“Are you okay my dear?” He placed his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. I felt my body relax a bit. He had always comforted me.

“Yeah…j-just a little…shaken. How many did you buy?” I felt Grandpa stiffen through my question. He thought I didn’t know why we went there. He slowly released me, let me see his face as he answered,

“Around ten, if they’d let me get that many. We’re really short of hands. A lot of people had already worked their dues for us, so I let them go.” He looked outside, through the tinted window of the car. I felt that he didn’t want to have this kind of conversation with me, but I was a stubborn girl, I did take the hard-headedness of the Moon bloodline. I took off my gloves and covered his wrinkled and strong hands with mine. I felt warmth surround me. I took a deep breath and dried my tears.

“Grandpa, I want to use my trust fund.” He glanced back at me, his sternness reappeared, the kind of sternness I often see when he gets mad with his managers. I never thought he’d use that on me. He knew what was going to be spoken of next, but I continued,

“I want to buy the girl from the second House. The one you saw with me earlier. I want to get her out of there.” I never pleaded in my life, but in that time, I was ready to do anything.

“You can’t use your trust fund Byulyi. You can’t buy her _.”_ His steely voice cracked through me, I cringed in the strictness of his voice, but I didn’t want to give up just yet,

“She doesn’t belong there! She doesn’t deserve to be there!” He looked at me and said quietly,

“Nobody deserves to be in there Byulyi.” I was silenced. Grandpa had a point. No one wanted to be locked in there in the first place.

“They got in there because they were taken from the streets, they were fed, given enough education so they can find decent jobs after they’re—“ I cut him off with my sob,

“After they’re sold. Like pets, like worthless animals. Like meat in the market.” I glanced away from him, I knew he wouldn’t let me touch my money for the purpose of buying someone in the Three Houses. He took hold of my hand; he waited until I looked back at him before he spoke,

“She’s not for sale, **yet**. Plus you cannot buy anyone from the Houses until you’re a member of the The Club.”

“That means I’ll never buy her out of there, does it Grandpa? How can I even be a member of your Club?” I took my hand away from his. If it wasn’t an insult to my sex that the Club he belonged to only allowed successful, rich men, I don’t know what it was. He sighed, his authoritative tone returned, this time it wasn’t used to reprimand my stubbornness, it was tinged with a hopeful, powerful tone in it. Like he was planning something for me,

“You’ll be a member Byulyi; you are going to be the first woman to join the Club. You will change the Club, you will be the change everyone has been waiting for. You will show them the legacy and the power of being a female Moon.”

\----------------

It’s been ten years since that encounter, and now I still find myself thinking back to that day. I look at myself in the mirror and I can’t help but close my eyes to remember her brown orbs, that filled silently with hope when I uttered the words from her locket. I still remember her face. But I never knew where to find her. I never knew if she’s still in the Three Houses. Another ten years had passed, and until now, I’m still looking at her locket. It became grimy and old, it lost the luster but the carved words still shone under the sunlight. I sighed and pocketed the locket. In a few minutes, I’ll be celebrating my 30th birthday, and I’m still thinking about her.

Hyejin, are you alright? Are you alive?

a soft knock broke my silence, as I was looking through my drawer for the pair of sandals I need for the outfit Grandpa had ordered for me. I took my robes and covered myself before I went to the door.

When I opened it, a very drunk and very happy Kim Yongsun stumbled into my arms. A bottle of scotch was on her left hand and two tumblers on the other. She was laughing and chanting some song I barely understood, as she sang it in her drunken slurry of words.

“Well, I think your drunken singing will create a lot of hooting downstairs.”

Yongsun laughed some more, as she stumbled towards the bed, almost slipping the bottle and glasses from her hand. She placed them down on the bedside table and she toed off her Choos. She playfully twirled around before her hand rested on the ties of my bathrobe.

“The only hooting I want to hear is when they hear us making each other scream Moon.” Her low, alcohol-laced breath made me grimace and she slapped me teasingly on my hip. I laughed, my best friend never failed to make me laugh these past few days.

“Shut up Yong. It’s too early for you to be drunk. And it’s too late for me to still be in my underwear. I need to change or Grandpa will drag me down half- naked in front of them. That’s not a scene I want them to see, I am after all, the heiress.” I really didn’t mean the last sentence to be melancholic, but Yongsun heard my tone, and it sobered her up.

“Don’t you want this Byulyi? All this fortune? Money? Freedom? How come you’re still…” I sighed, if there’s one thing I love and hate about Yongsun, she knows me so well, she could read right through me, see right through me.

“Yong, sometimes, you’re too smart for me. Freedom? Even if you’re free to do so many things, you’re still cooped up in your own little cage.” I looked outside of my window, and saw my Grandpa, with his cane and his white tux, walking around to find his table. Everyone put on their porcelain masks and he put on his, a white mask. Only he and I have white half- masks, similar to the mask worn by the phantom of the opera. Yongsun pulled on her red one and nodded at me,

“Time to put on a show then. Isn’t that’s the purpose of your mask? Your mask is used to hide your emptiness.” She slipped on her Jimmy Choos again and went out of my room silently. Yongsun always had a point.

I put on my white four-piece tux, my cufflinks in Swarovski stones in a vines and flowers pattern. My bobbed hair was in a messy waves. As I slipped on my Manolos and put on my half- mask, I was once again, transformed into what the Club knew as the Viper. I wore my coat, and went out of my room. The party had to start and it had to start from me.

The crowd rose on their feet when I got on the topmost step of the staircase leading to our garden. There were new members of the Club sitting at the left side of the yard. I cleared my throat and I began speaking,

“Thank you everyone for attending my celebration. Tonight is a very important evening for me. As the board announced last week, tonight, is not only the night of my birthday, but also the night of my first year as your chairperson. I want to thank everyone for giving me your confidence. I don’t promise anything, but I work hard and strive for the best. Anything short of best is out of the equation. This Club will stay anonymous, but our intentions and help will spread like wildfire on a hot summer day. I will change the way we help. In a better way.” Agreement on the hushed tones was what surrounded me, they exploded into a round of applause.

Everyone seemed to know that I was going to take my job seriously, all except one, Mark Kim.

His lascivious grin emanated all the way from the back. I never liked him, neither did my Grandpa. He wanted to take my position in the Club and in the company, he was a stockholder and he even threatened us to withdraw his shares if we didn’t make him a permanent member of the board of directors. He withdrew, only to go back because he knew it was useless to go toe to toe with me and Grandpa at the same time.

As I walked down the staircase, the older members came to congratulate and greet me. Grandpa was beaming with pride, his protégé and only granddaughter had followed his footsteps successfully. I couldn’t be more happy to do so. Only it had left me a hole in my heart, and a lingering question in my head. Is this all there is to it?

Everyone had a fine dinner and thanked me for the wonderful night of the reunion of the Club. It was an affair indeed, the original founders were there, to see the inauguration of their youngest Chairperson. The Club wasn’t all bad. We help a lot of non-profit organizations that in turn, help people on different things: legal assistance, medical care, housing, all the works. We operated like normal business people, but after all the formalities, the Club worked like the modern day Robin Hood. The only downside was the dark side: The Three Houses.

As I finished thanking everyone for the lovely evening, Mark slithered on to my side, his Cheshire Cat grin appeared behind his gold mask. He took my hand and kissed it gently, a gesture that would’ve been almost sweet if it wasn’t him doing it, on my birthday no less.

“Happy birthday Viper.” His tones matched a sex-crazed adolescent. I politely withdrew my hand and nodded, desperate to try and get away from his grasp. He glided yet again in my front, effectively blocking my way, he hissed silently in my ear,

“I have a gift for you. It will soon appear inside your room.” I was offended from his hissing, but the glint in his eyes forced me to ask him what his gift was,

“What could the great Mark Kim ever get me for my birthday that doesn’t spell sex and dirty at the same time?” I raised my eyebrows, an innuendo to finish what he was teasing me about. His dirty raunchy laugh burbled from his throat and he gave me his best toothy smile as he took off his mask,

“I gave you my turn.” My eyebrows scrunched at his answer,

“What turn are you talking about?” He walked around me, stood behind me and placed his hands on both of my shoulders. He let his breath touch my ear as he whispered,

“It’s my turn, my only turn, for The Raven. But I gave my turn to you. You need a little spice in your boring life Moon.” I turned to face him, I never knew he’d pass up the opportunity to meet and bed the finest lady in The Three Houses.”

A teasing smile played on my lips as I pulled his coat and tugged him a little more into me, he was clearly enjoying my teasing. Sometimes I play with Mark, it’s fun to make him sweat.

“How can I possibly believe you, Mark? You, the sex- crazed maniac of this floor, passed up for the best lady in the House? Just to give her to me? When in fact you know, that the only thing I’m going to do with her is talk and talk until it’s time for her to get home? Did you seriously think I’d jump on The Raven like you would?” I trailed a finger on his chest, his blue-grey eyes darkened with desire. He swallowed as his eyes settled on my lips. It was getting dangerous and he was clearly in for it. I whispered something before I turned around and walked away,

“No more second chances, Mark. You cannot have another turn with The Raven, you don’t have the money to pay for her to get you undone anyway.”

I knew what Mark did to his ladies. I’ve heard in more than one occasion that he asks for the House to give him multiple girls to play with, making his condo unit a sex- den after work hours. I never knew what has gotten into him, to pass his opportunity with the lady so elusive, that the members ask for a reservation right after they were ordained part of the Club. And the reservation only consisted of a lap dance or a pole dance routine. No one could afford to spend the night with her, if there were members who can, their personal bank accounts were dried out for the next two months. No one wanted that.

My reservation however, was one of the most expensive in the history of the Three Houses and the history of my bank account. Grandpa almost scolded me, but he knew that I had something in mind. He knew I was tracking down my friend. That I even willed to pay an obscene amount of money to spend time with the top girl in the House just to talk to her, like what I do with the men and women I get from the House. I talk to them, not sleep with them.

I use my time to interview them, take note of their lives and try to think of a way to help them once they’re out of the Houses. And at the same time, try and track down Hyejin. They lose their names when they enter the third House, and with their name gone, so is their identity. Talking to them is my only way of finding out where Hyejin is. And it feels bleak every time I finish my interviews. It feels like I’ll never find Hyejin.

But The Raven holds the key to most secrets of the Third House. She’s become this legend, and that most of the things that happened in the Three Houses or in the club in the past 5 or 6 years, she’s also now a part of that.

The surge of her popularity with the members meant a lot of them were willing to give her money, time, and the most important of all, trade secrets, so they can get a chance with her. She’s the biggest asset because all of a sudden, she knows the entirety of the operations of the The Club, the majority of the businesses ran by the members, and how other companies have been bought and traded because of what she passes down to these men. Which is also her biggest downfall – no one can buy her from the Houses because her starting amount in the auction is too expensive, due to the fact that she’s now morphed into a somewhat an intelligence agent. The top insider.

Which is also exactly why I want to talk to her. I stepped out by the terrace and looked over the garden below us. She’s my only chance to see Hyejin, to know where Hyejin is.

I wasn’t supposed to get a turn with her until next month; the process of securing a slot with her was so hard and expensive. But now, thanks to Mark’s stupidity or generosity, whichever fits the sitch, he’ll never have another chance for the Raven until after two more years.

My encounter with the Raven will be three nights and two days, starting tonight when the truck arrives at my room. 60 hours, 12 million dollars. I’m spending an amount of money that was equivalent to a luxury sports car. This is going to be a 12 million-dollar conversation— the most expensive conversation I’ll ever have in my lifetime. All for the sake of a promise. A promise of freedom.


	5. Your prison walls they do confine but can't contain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's going to be dropped in an empty unit, no instructions or the envelope of requests. Nothing but to expect that there will be two people who will meet her. One of them probably will be the Viper, who knows.
> 
> She looks out of the window of the armored van she's in; it feels different because it's protocol to have the members provide a list of their "wishes" that they want to do to her. But zero clues with two men, huh? Nothing new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for those who waited patiently for this fic. I assure you it's not going to be abandoned. :)
> 
> I recently learned a ~thing~ that some of my favorite writers do whenever they post a new chapter over at another platform - they put music on it. But uh I'm not sure if I can do it here, too. I tried embedding but it messes up the layout so I'll just put the link of the music here for this chapter: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/43sz5eMrFUVzGSTynFHMLp?si=INJA-Lf1R7SzLDcxBtDRfQ
> 
> Maybe I'll make a playlist for this work, but we'll see.
> 
> Please listen to this song while reading this chapter! thank you!
> 
> Nothing written here is real and all of these are re-imagined. None are also done with ill or malicious intent. Please don't sue.

The attendant left her room, her jaw still wide open.

_What in the world?_

It's not the first time that some member of the Club got her for more than a night. When she was just starting, some would request her for three nights in a row; she was still "affordable" back then. But 60 hours? She placed her palm over her mouth and tried to compute how much the member would pay The Houses.

Who is this guy? Why would he pay an obscene amount of money? And the worst part is that, most of the women and men he shared a night with, well, got bought off immediately or would not spill a single word after that encounter with the guy. She couldn't even ask who this Viper is because whenever his "codename" gets mentioned by the attendants, laced sometimes with disdain or awe, the women and men who were still with inside the House who he has met or touched would automatically spread out or get away from them. 

But why her? Who is this Viper guy?

She closes her eyes and breathes out slowly. Not the time to get cold feet or have false hope that she'll ever leave the place. It's just a one time big time, right? Maybe the Club finally got the most gullible member to even pay that amount for a couple of nights. Or maybe the member doesn't know the price? Or maybe he's horrible - because why would the others cower at the mere mention of his name?

Tsch. Viper. What a weird codename.

She's worked herself up in a mood. The dread in her gut transformed into something familiar: anger. 

She goes to the attendant who informed her about the reservation.

"The envelope?" she says, a frown etched on her face. The attendant shakes her head. Her eyebrows shoot up. Maybe there's a brief or something because there usually is- if it's a non-specific free for all type of reservation. It's just that...she hasn't done that in a while. 

"Nothing. No specifics. No out of the ordinary. We just know that there'd be two men waiting for you in a hotel room. They also requested that you be left alone with just your tracker. You can pick whatever wardrobe you want to wear, but maybe keep it...decent. Most of the women they asked before often wear dresses for a pretend girlfriend dinner date fantasy of sorts. But not too sexy. I don't know. The Viper is part of the Moons Inc., so we're pretty confident that you won't be going anywhere and so far, no one has ever tried to escape since they know they won't survive if they do. The Moons are weapon manufacturers, you'll get gunned they if you try."

She's going to be dropped in an empty unit, no instructions or the envelope of requests. Nothing but to expect that there will be two people who will meet her. One of them probably will be the Viper, who knows.

\---

She looks out of the window of the armored van she's in; it feels different because it's protocol to have the members provide a list of their "wishes" that they want to do to her. But zero clues with two men, huh? Nothing new.

She's a tight-fitting, long-sleeved black backless dress with a black faux-fur coat; the dress hugging all her curves perfectly and is quite classy enough to be in a dinner with high-profile people, but also easily peeled off she does need to do a lap dance or striptease or what have you in the next 60 hours.

60 hours. What in the world will they do with all that time. She knows they can't go all awake in 60 hours, and she knows that it's still a good few hours before the weekend hits. Fridays are hectic, but the Viper wanted a half a Friday and the whole weekend with her. Surely, _surely,_ she won't meet him today, right?

They finally stop moving. The armored van opens and she gets her little suitcase with the clothes she'll be using for the next three nights. She scans the parking lot and she immediately knows that it's the fancy hotel in the city. She was once brought here, but never really thought she'd come back again AND would be staying for three nights.

The drivers from The Houses have transferred her now to two tall men in suits and in face masks. She can't really try going anywhere because she has a chip embedded under her skin; a tag that tracks her and her whereabouts, her physical status, and all the information one can have about her.

Not that information about her is important. But the information she knows, well, that's a different story. And that's what made her the highest paid lady of the House. She slips on her huge dark sunglasses to hide almost half of her face and walks in the hotel towards the service elevators with her new guards. 

Classy. Service elevators. She knows the drill but she still hates the idea of being in a luxury hotel but using the service elevators because she basically doesn't exist in the outside world and people seeing her walking in a public area like the hotel lobby would diminish that idea of being invisible.

She breathes in and releases it slowly. Anger. Boiling underneath her skin. Anger that she's losing her life into things like this. Into being like this. And she can't do anything about it. She didn't want all of this to happen. Maybe it would have been better if they were left in the border to--

*ding*

Her thoughts get interrupted with the soft ding of the elevator. They walk out to the corridor leading to the lone door on that floor. Hmm, maybe it's the penthouse suite.

She's staying in the penthouse suite for 3 nights, 60 hours straight. How ironic and at the same time, funny as hell. The moment she steps in that door, one of the guys will start the timer that will trigger the tag of the Houses to start the countdown.

She now secretly wishes she never had 60 hours. It's like eating food you're allergic to--you're going to enjoy every bite only at the end of it, you're gonna flare up and regret the fun you had while eating.

She clutches the handle of her bag. Well, it's not for her to decide whether or not she's going to enjoy, right? She's going to disappear again, and let the Raven take over. But when will Ahn Hyejin live? When will the real her finallly be free?

The man opens the door to the suite and the other one clicks something on his phone. Her timer.

She walks into the room. It's showtime.

\-----

The room is really a big apartment, glass walls on where the sun rises, a space for the enormous leather couch and probably a corridor leading to another room--

"Ah right on time, I see. They're quite a punctual bunch, The Houses. And you're what, girl number 237?"

She froze on the spot. She's sure the attendant told her there'd be two guys waiting, but...

"Oh where are my manners. Hello, I'm Yongsun."

She couldn't help herself, she looks at the woman, Yongsun, in front of her, staring at her face, then her collarbones on display, the tiny waist, then her butt and her legs...

"Like what you see?" she quips, doing a slow turn in front of her. Wait, she's the Raven now, what is she doing?

"I'm sorry, I was just expecting...men."

"Are you sorry I'm not a man or are you sorry that you realized it late that you're staring?" Yongsun slowly touches her collarbone with her finger as she walks towards Hyejin, a very mischievous smile painted on her face.

She snaps back to the job. Well, it should be a good game of teasing right?

She meets her in the middle of the room, they almost have the same height in heels, so she locks her eyes on hers. She replaces Yongsun's fingers with hers, trailing slowly from her shoulders to the middle of her neck. Yongsun's smile disappeared and a healthy red flush blooms on her cheeks.

"Well, it's not hard to stare..."

Yongsun's breath hitches when Hyejin's finger slipped lower into her décolletage, her off-shoulder dress dipping together with Hyejin's finger. Hyejin breaks her eye contact and whispers on Yongsun's ear, her finger drawing tiny circles on the other woman's cleavage.

"But I'm here for the Viper."

That seems to snap Yongsun back into reality. She takes a step back and laughs a little, flushed from the sudden physicality but also nodding to herself as she walks back to the couch. She sits on the couch and crosses her legs.

"Well, yes you are here for the Viper. It's just that, she's kind of specific with what she wants - "

"She?" this is making her lose her confidence again. The Viper is a woman? Yongsun smiles again and eyes her bag.

"Of course, no one would dare tell who the Viper is let alone tell you that she's a woman. You seem disappointed."

She's not disappointed, it's just that well...she hasn't done...anything to a woman other than teasing? Her last threesome was way back and with two men--

"Don't think about anything that you've done in the past...what's your name again?"

"Raven, you can call me Raven." She forces her lips to speak, her mouth incredibly dry with this information and how she needs to spin it around to get back on her character.

"Oh Raven, right. Well, don't think about that. That's not how the Viper works. Don't underestimate her and leave all your expectations when you go out that door. You;ll be picked up by a driver in about 10 minutes." Yongsun rises from her seat and gets to the corner table to get something from her bag.

"Where...eherm, this isn't the place where I'll meet the Viper?"

"No dear, you'll be chauffeured around the city," Yongsun gives her a black card.

"She's still working so you'll meet her by 6 pm. She asked me so _nicely_ to help you settle in and, well, tell you what's going on. But for now, you're supposed to remove whatever this clothing is because that's too flashy to walk in malls at this hour, change into the clothes inside the room--we were told that you're usually a shirt and denim pants at the Houses so I hope that's okay."

She steps back a little. What kind of rabbit hole did she fall into--wait.

Oh. Right.

Right. "The Girlfriend". The request is to be her girlfriend, a sugar baby. Someone who will throw a lot of money to her, wine and dine by the most secluded and exclusive places, and by the end of the day, a kiss on the mouth and a goodbye as she goes back to the Houses.

It has been a long, long while since that was requested of her. She tilts her head at Yongsun.

"What should I buy then? Jewelry? Clothes? Bags? You know I can't bring those back to the Houses."

"Buy clothes you'll want to wear, for when you come out of the Houses."

Her Raven facade has been broken. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped.

"Well, that is, if she gets what she wants from you. Because you do know, that you're extremely, and forgive my cursing, extremely _fucking_ expensive." Yongsun gets her bag and walks back up to Hyejin, touching her her cheek with a knuckle on her finger.

"You better do things right with Viper if you plan on getting out of there."

"What does she want from me? Why 60 hours?"

"To squeeze out every bit of information you have with the Houses." Yongsun smiles at her and walks past her, going to the door.

"Like I said, the driver would wait for you downstairs. There's also a phone in the room where you'll be contacted by Viper and the driver. Maybe me, if you're lucky." She winks at Hyejin before opening the door.

"The driver will go wherever you want, just make sure that by 5:30, you're ready for your dinner. She hates being late. I'll see you tomorrow...maybe."

Yongsun leaves, closing the door with a soft click. Only then did Hyejin let her hand hold on to the couch for support as her knees wobbled. She's totally out of character and out of element here. And she has a driver waiting for her downstairs in 5 minutes.

Her heart begins to race--is this what hope finally means? Can she even do that? Hope? Can she hope to get out of that hell? But at what cost? Literally at what cost?


End file.
